Puppies rescued from garbage bag thrown in desert

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MESA, AZ - The kitchen in Michelle Meyer's Mesa home turned into a puppy triage center Monday afternoon. She works as a volunteer foster parent for dogs.

The sink became a washing station.

The kitchen counter seemed to transform into a medical station.

The kitchen floor, a waiting room of sorts where nine puppies have a shot at a better life after being abandoned in the West Valley.

"It's just terrible that people can event act like that," Debbie Yarbrough with
Animal Rescue Friends said.

The puppies were found Sunday afternoon in a garbage bag near Tonopah.

"They went to the bag, and opened up the bag and found these nine puppies and their momma, and there was a chihuahua as well," Yarbrough said.

The family who made the discovery gave them food and water, and contacted Animal Rescue Friends, who came to the rescue.

The pups are all going to foster homes for care, but now the group is trying to find the puppies good forever homes.

"The puppies, we've got enough people to cover them, we've got the chihuahua covered with a foster home, it's just the beautiful mamma, we're trying to find her a good place to recoup and relax," Yarbrough said.

Volunteers hope to spread the word about the dogs -- to help find them good families -- and maybe catch the person who left them on their own.

"To just take a dogs out to the desert, and dump them, I just can't imagine. It's unimaginable to me," Yarbrough said.

Copyright 2013 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.